


And Make It Look Like An Accident

by scarlet-kingsnake (high_spring_tide)



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bonding, Gen, non-specific speculation about ways to kill people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28174287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/high_spring_tide/pseuds/scarlet-kingsnake
Summary: Damen has been trying for months to get Nicaise to be friendly or at least not openly hostile. So perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that the longest conversation he's managed to have with Nicaise so far has been about murder.
Relationships: Damen & Nicaise (Captive Prince)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 30
Collections: Captive Prince Secret Santa 2020





	And Make It Look Like An Accident

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minnie321](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minnie321/gifts).



> Note: this is light and fluffy. They're not like scheming about revenge or anything.
> 
> Happy holidays to everyone, but especially Minnie321.

“So,” Damen says, “seen any good movies lately?”

“Laurent likes you, for whatever reason,” Nicaise says, not looking up from his phone. “That doesn’t mean I have to.”

“Or we could sit here in silence until Laurent gets back,” Damen says, forcing himself not to sigh. It’s not the first time he’s tried this.

_ “He’ll come around eventually,” _ Laurent had said, and  _ “don’t try to force it.” _ And Damen isn’t trying to force Nicaise to like him, but it would be nice if he tolerated him enough for polite conversation. It’s been a couple months since Laurent trusted him, trusted  _ them  _ enough to introduce Damen to Nicaise. So far Nicaise has only shifted from seeing him as a completely unexpected pain in the ass to a predictable one. 

At least he doesn’t treat Damen worse on the brief occasions where Laurent has to leave them alone to run an errand. Not that that’s saying much--the second time the three of them had dinner together, Nicaise had managed to ‘accidentally’ spill hot soup on Damen with Laurent in the same room. And then Nicaise had proclaimed that Damen’s squeal of pain had sounded like a wounded raccoon. 

But nothing good has ever come from forcing a sullen teenager into conversation, so Damen keeps his mouth shut and pulls up an article on his own phone to read until Laurent arrives with the takeout. 

Only Laurent’s not back by the time Damen finishes that article, or the next, or the next. 

“I wonder what’s taking him so long,” he says to no one in particular. “The restaurant’s like a ten minute drive from here.”

There’s a loud snort from Nicaise, who by now is lying with his back on the couch and his legs dangling over the armrest. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet? He’s obviously avoiding us on purpose in the hopes we’ll magically start to get along if we have no one else to talk to.” 

That doesn’t make too much sense to Damen--why would they get along  _ better  _ without Laurent around to mediate? On the other hand, it’s not like Laurent’s attempts to maneuver the conversation to a topic both Nicaise and Damen will participate in have been going well either. 

“Maybe he just figures you’d killed me already and is giving you time to hide my body,” Damen says. 

That at least gets Nicaise to sit up so he can glare at Damen properly. “Okay, first of all,” he says, “Laurent would totally help me hide a body. Even your body. And second of all, I wouldn’t hide your body. Obviously. I’d make it look like an accident.” 

And this feels like progress, somehow. After all, Nicaise is adding to the conversation, not shutting it down. Even if the topic isn’t the friendliest. 

“Yeah? How would you manage that?” Damen says. 

“We’ve got foxgloves outside. I could poison you and make it look like a heart attack.”

“I’m twenty-six and I do triathlons. You don’t think anyone’s going to find it suspicious that I suddenly die of a heart attack?”

“Okay, then, I’ll hit you over the head and make it look like you were cleaning Laurent’s gutters and fell off the ladder. You’re like, a great guy or whatever, all your friends would believe you’d clean your boyfriend’s gutters unprompted.”

“That does sound like something I might do. But I’d probably wait until some time when it wasn’t eight pm, dark out, and raining. I guess you could make it look like I fell down the stairs?”

“Maybe. Fire’s always a good go-to, except that we’re at my house and I wouldn’t want to destroy my own stuff.”

“Okay, so those’re some plans for if you’re here at the house. What if you were at, like, an office building and you had to kill not me but like a bunch of terrorists or something?” Damen says. 

“Oh, you mean like  _ Die Hard _ ?” Nicaise says. “I’d find a janitor’s closet, mix some cleaners, booby trap them with mustard gas.”

“Your first step would be war crimes?”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Nicaise says with a shrug. “So you’re a  _ Die Hard _ fan?”

“Seen all five of ‘em. And I watch the first one every Christmas.”

“You’ve seen  _ all _ of them? The first one’s actually good, but everyone knows the next three are crappy, and then the last one’s--”

“So bad it’s good, I know,” Damen says, at the same time Nicaise finishes “so bad it’s good.”

“Like fucking  _ Sharknado _ or something,” Nicaise agrees. 

“Yeah,  _ Sharknado  _ was fun,” Damen says. “Have you seen  _ Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda _ ?”

“No, I’ll have to look that one up,” Nicaise says. “You know, Laurent just doesn’t get the so-bad-it’s-good thing. He says he doesn’t see what the point of watching a movie is if it’s not well done.”

“Well, Laurent is obviously wrong. Unintentional humor is so often the funniest kind.”

“Exactly! We’ll have to, like, swap crappy movie recommendation lists.” 

They’re working on those lists a few minutes later when Laurent arrives with the pizza.

“Sorry for the delay,” he says. “Our order got switched with somebody else’s, and I guess they were a vegan who had ordered that weird fake meat, so I had them remake it.”

“Suuure,” Nicaise says. “I’m sure that’s exactly what happened, and you stayed out so long for no ulterior motives at all.” 

“What are you, my dad? Help me get the plates out,” Laurent says. 

They’re a few minutes into the meal when Nicaise puts his pizza down and glares at Damen. “Hey. We did end up talking about movies after all. Well played, you sneaky bastard.”

“What? No, I wasn’t trying to, like manipulate the conversation around to movies or anything,” Damen protests. Laurent is smiling at him across the table. 

“It’s okay,” Nicaise says, and pokes Damen sharply in the side. “Looks like maybe you’ll fit in alright around here after all.”


End file.
